The Caverns
By Chris Radford

Walkthrough by Robin Burgess [rjb]

Abbreviations: CPS = crawlspace; SG = shotgun; pfm = platform; bec = because; psg = passage;
J&C = ‘jump & cling’ (eg ‘J&C lever’); RJ&C = ‘run, jump & cling’; R&J = ‘run & jump’;
SJ = ‘standing jump’; N & W = ‘normal’ & ‘wideshot’ (as in SG shells); WT = wall-torch; AH = air-hole (when underwater); PP = pressure pad/plate; MS = moveable structure; bflp = backflip; smslt = somersault (so: ‘bflp-smslt’ also); SmJ = smoke jet; :. = therefore.

Start: 3 SMPs, 1 LMP, 3 flares to begin. Down dark slope - torches at sides; locusts; deep pit ahead & ledges at either side - rocks to rt & blocks at left; opening ahead across pit. Can jump to either side with care. Can J&C down to reach LH lower hole - 2 gratings inside room: one shows room with pillars beyond & other has rapidly flowing water beneath. Both seem to have part of grating as a gate & E a lock for the ‘water’ gate. Nothing to find within. SJ back up to torch-lit block outside. 2 levers in pillared area (RJ&C to reach from RH rocks, then J&C to reach up), light 2 wall-torches -perhaps in lower room - so perhaps one of gates is now open. A bat as enter pillared area & 2/3 more as return from levers. Yes, RH gate has been opened. Very tricky to jump safely all way back to room.

The new (2nd) room has a grating showing rocks beyond & below - & a RH side grating that might be a gate - & an opening left. As enter LH opening, E an electronic beam that takes all Lara’s health. This becomes a ‘dart shooter’. Ahead is a structure that is moveable, but cannot at the moment because of steps behind & grating beyond - to place on a side square? When go along passage where dart emitter starts, discover another in LH passage. Can crawl beneath both. Come to pool at right with grating over a lever beyond, & grating at left by an unlit wall-torch (WT). Torch or lever to open LH grating, then can push structure? Water has shallows & pool, then see another grating at right & a tunnel beyond underwater. Cannot immediately see how to proceed. E N SG shells by WT. An unlit torch is on the floor, amidst one of the piles of rubble, carefully camouflaged - to the left of the steps where the dart- emitter is passing overhead. Can pick up torch while crouched, but cannot then move. If stand & immediately roll, then can avoid any health-loss. Lighting WT raises adjacent gate so can access the moveable structure (MS). Can then push it one square through the gap. Then go back around - or jump diagonally through gap - & push the structure onto square at right, so that the PP works. This opens the grating in front of the lever across the pool. This lever opens the RH side grating in the 2nd room.

Avoiding smoke - which becomes flame - can jump down to pick up temple key. Need to jump up avoiding it also. Can return, avoiding some of darts altogether through gap, to use temple key on locked gate. See now E 4 lit WTs beyond - this is what we’ve been shown gradually. When go down drop beyond water, see another lock for another grating directly below - water below. On grating below are W SG shells & loaded (6N) Shotgun. Discover next that the grating just beyond where found the temple key (& smoke) is now open. Can now reach rocks that saw through main grating in 2nd room. Hear another bat as enter. Can see a key below at right. This is another temple key. Tall ladder next to pfm where found key. Too high to get directly back to ledge where dropped down to key. Near top of ladder can bflp off to rock, then jump back to pfm where went down for key. Seems to be nothing else to find in cave. When return over smoke to beneath waterfall, by 4 WTs, & use key, the grating doesn’t drop, but find that the underwater grating/gate near where pushed MS has been opened, giving access to water-tunnel. Leaving lighted torch nearby.

As soon as pass gate that was opened, it drops shut! Beneath overhang as go along tunnel E a SMP on floor, then come to larger area of passage with AH above. Hoist up to dark passage (what isn’t dark here?) & shown Lara from other end of short passage. Drop down at end to passage at right-angles. RH alcove with WT has flares (at last). As go forward from WT, just before enter huge cavern beyond (with ‘much tension’/wariness music) given fly-by, showing ledges, raised walkways, several columns, gratings (some very large), ‘significant panels’ on walls (but why is not clear), WTs, a little sunlight from above through one grating, many rocks, a large pool of water (with perhaps 5 crocs in total!) & falling water - all fairly dark, as before, despite sunlight & WTs. Fly-by ends with a panel that seemed to be at far end of cavern, to the left, past gratings, etc. - so ‘target’ to aim for? If go forward or to the side onto the rocks unwarily, E at least 2 gryphons that fly towards Lara - one at a time - that send energy bolts to zap Lara’s strength & have a poisonous ‘sting’ if they get too close. If can avoid falling in water, the central island of the pool can be quite useful - CAN manage to shoot both gryphons & then all 5 crocs losing very little energy, just with pistols, though it’ll probably take over 2 minutes to do so. Seems E nothing else in the pool after the crocs have gone. At RH side from initial opening, E a grating in the ground where can see box of revolver rounds just below. Could be steps below. (Unfortunately, here E quite a lot of places, found while ‘exploring’, where Lara ‘gets stuck’ between a down slope & a vertical face. Not good, as a reload is needed each time.) Beneath the central rock area just beyond the waterfall, E a hole down - a ladder at one side, difficult to find - to a slope below, with a spike trap at the bottom, but looked like a gun of some kind beyond that, if could jump over spikes. [From loaded uzi guns (+ 30 rnds), jump diagonally over 2nd shallow spikes pit (spikes go up & down). Best way to proceed seems to be a sideflip (or bflp may work because of low ceiling). Come out next to area with ledges & pools below, flames, grilles, a couple of bats enter. Leave this until later.]

Only way discovered so far up to high walkway is at extreme LH end of cavern, beyond waterfall, with a J&C from above a triangular section of rock. Cannot find anything else at ground level - RH end of pool is stable in parts (+ ‘sticking’ areas) but E no items. If go to LH far corner & J&C up to raised walkway, find laser sight (and know E a revolver somewhere because of revolver rounds seen) at far side, some distance away from hoist up point. E also some rock overhangs that can jump to. E a smoke jet (SmJ) at the end nearest the entrance to this vast cavern. There seems to be nothing on either of the rock overhangs near the SmJ, but can see a 2nd pfm & an opening in one of the gratings across from overhang above the pool. Can RJ&C to the overhang from the nearest point of the raised walkway. This leads to discovery that cannot quite reach overhang from one of short sloping pillars at RH end of pool. R&J across to RH ledge & then up past grating. At RH side E a drop down to cave with a small pool, with an opening at the right with a ‘blue bauble’ to shoot - but don’t yet have revolver to attach laser sight. If shoot it with pistols, only locusts!! At LH side E a low CSP in the wall. LH CSP is secret area with 4 N grenades. There seems no point to the ‘bauble & locusts’, unless some door/ gate is opened at the same time as the locusts are released - cannot get into the small cave that the ‘bauble + locusts’ inhabit. The locusts may be less of a problem if go under the water during the time they are flying about - not completely immune, though. Ah. The large grating at the original LH side of the great cavern now has a large opening in it. A RJ&C will bring Lara to the opening, & then can see the patterned square that the fly-by stopped on is in fact a receptor - but we have nothing for it as yet. The 2 wide side gratings both have carpeted slopes leading up beyond. There seems to be a door to the right of the receptor, & can see some more falling water beyond it. Leave this for now, as clearly HAVE to go other way first.

Returning to [‘below’ ground] section of 3 paragraphs up, at high level on rocks, & by vases at left can see through grating at left a cave with another MS inside at the left. And can see revolver itself on a ledge below by the water. (Loaded revolver - 6 rnds.) E another grating here, by 2 unlit WTs, & can see a further cave beyond. Can see E items below in water. Going back a little, E some revolver rounds on another rock ledge, by a wall-lever. At initial end of cave (where entered), by 2 LIT WTs, E another grating where can see a passage beyond. Can hoist out of water at ‘near’ end. Items in water are uzi clips & LMP. Can also hoist out of water at far end. Wall-lever lights 2 unlit WTs & raises grating in between. Enter cave with sarcophs - short ‘wary’ music. More locusts as proceed - water to avoid? Come to a door at left that might be a ‘crowbar-openable’ door - but no crowbar as yet - & passage beyond has a lever. Find crowbar in corner, under the water at ‘near’ end of cave which had revolver, wall-lever etc. At top of short passage to lever E a WT behind a grating at each side. ‘Wonder’/ ‘achievement’ music as operate lever & grating between vases in upper level of room where found crowbar opens. Have to pull & push MS all way round central rocky area, to PP at RH side. Not shown what happened when did that, but E ‘gentle’ music as did so & may have heard a door opening. Grating at other end of ‘revolver’ room (by original 2 lit WTs) now raised - makes it difficult to go back through original opening directly above - but perhaps don’t want to, because to a slide down to spikes.

Go along passage to cave with a thistle stone(?) inside a cage at left & a ‘crowbar-door’ at right. E also a grating in the floor where can see a small passage that includes a lever. In fact, E 3 wall-levers in the passage below. The 1st operates some spikes beneath!! So does the 2nd!! The 3rd lever opens the gate that is at the far side of the ‘thistle’ cage. Hoist up, with more ‘achievement’ music, to pick up the purple rose - presumably The ‘key’ needed for the receptor seen above in the room that the fly-by finished upon. Way to return to surface - tricky - is to J&C from very edge of 1st shallow ‘spikes pit’, to the wall opposite. The red carpet-like covering is climbable, so can cling - must be as high as possible above 1st pit - then climb to right ALONG wall until come to bottom of shaft up, when climb right & up round slope, then can climb up to surface & hoist out. (Note: Revolver rounds are still in place below cavern grating. When place purple rose successfully in receptor, then given another fly-by, showing that one of the statues (middle at original RH side) - recognizable as ‘Jeanne d’Arc’ - is now ‘burning’ - perhaps giving access to somewhere else. Note: None of the gratings or the door here have opened. (‘Door’ may not in fact be a door.) Find as go near the burning statue that the grating in the floor has now been removed & can access the revolver rounds & a passage leading off there. Crouch backwards & drop down through CSP, when can see grating at right & a passage through it with 3 different coloured circles - green, orange, red - on floor beyond.
E some water, a grille of some kind & a further orange circle just visible to the right. ‘Bug’ alert: Strange ‘bug’ at this point, in that if use binocs, pressing the ‘light’ feature will stop the program dead. Anywhere in this passage seems to do it, though not when FIRST drop down to 1st revolver rounds, & nowhere else yet discovered on ‘surface’. Can use the zoom, but not the ‘light’ feature here - elsewhere BEFORE this point is all right. Ah, lighting a flare won’t work in this tunnel/passage either - this happened somewhere else once, some time ago, but cannot remember where. If light a flare & drop it on ground all is well, but if then pick it up, it goes out again! Drop it & it comes on again - for the duration of the flare - this is true in the ‘1st revolver rounds’ part of tunnel also. Seems that if the lower part of passage has been entered, this ‘bug’ is triggered. CANNOT then return to ‘1st part of passage’ or above ground w/o this also then happening there too - both the flare problem & the binocs problem. BEFORE the lower passage, all is well in both locations; if have ENTERED the lower passage, whether have lit any flares or not, then the other areas become subject to the same ‘bug’ also. {Note: Later discovered this problem is ‘known’, apparently called ‘the flare bug’; caused by too many ‘light emitters’ in 1 location at a time - (here the SF). An author (as with official games) can correct it by putting in ‘anti-triggers’; ‘players’ cannot, it seems.}

SF = ‘flames as might be on a stove’ }
E some more revolver rounds just along from CSP-drop down. Beyond some SF can see 2 ‘blue baubles’. Shooting either LH or RH one causes spikes to spring up in tunnel! Need to be further BACK than where pick up 2nd box of revolver rounds to be safe - in fact, need to be back where picked up 1st revolver rounds - so cannot AIM revolver with laser sight because need to crouch to hit ‘bauble’. All these spikes in the passage oscillate up & down, & as with all these spikes, standing too close on a ‘safe’ square can also result in deadedness for Lara! CAN go forward, crawl, wait for the SF to have a gap & then crawl through to rihgt, into space, to have better access to ‘baubles’. It seems that E 6 of the ‘baubles’ to break. The final one releases some more locusts & the grating that we looked through at the (orig) right rises up. But cannot see how to return over the oscillating spikes - the gap in their being up seems nothing like long enough - will have to crawl back, stand, then crawl? through grating opening. 5 of the ‘baubles’ are at the LH side & just the nearest is at the right. Perhaps it IS possible to shoot them all from the safe position where the 1st revolver rounds were picked up? Aha! Solved problem. Aim is to shoot ONLY the ‘bauble’ that releases the locusts - unfortunately - & opens the door; then the spikes WON’T be activated. Need revolver with laser sight to do that & go as far forward as possible, at the RH side. Run from locusts!

The new room has many coloured ‘spots’ on the floor, around the grille-covered water/pool, 2 free-standing levers, a rocky ramp up forward, another ‘sticking area’ unfortunately, a RH side grating showing a side cave with 2 more WTs off to left inside (cannot use ‘light’ on binocs still), a pedestal with what looks like a scroll on it behind a grating above that, a LH side grating showing another area with some ‘spots’, opened by the 2 levers either side & some steps up in 2 places. E also seems to be a CSP grating up some steps forward - difficult to see because unable to use ‘light’ feature of binocs & flares have to be dropped to work. When use levers to open CSP through LH grating, helix around Jeanne d’Arc figure starts to revolve. E a few of the coloured ‘spots’ on the wall, by gratings - don’t know significance, if any. When go through CSP from LH grating, discover 2 levers & that several of squares with ‘spots’ in room just left are now SF. ‘Spots’ inside room with levers are green & orange, as are 2 spots either side of entrance to this room, & 4 squares are SF, 2 of each of these colours on floor, including the 2 in front of the opening that has been made when raising RH grating via levers. Each of 2 levers opens one of the gratings at the (orig) RH side. Seems to be a case of waiting & timing a run through the SF when they are off for least energy loss. Inside, to left, then right E 2 more helices & a couple of skeletors (shields & swords) by them who attack. Beyond the helices is another grating, through which can see a further cave, with an opening at far side & some SG shells. E another water-pool/light here in the floor- centre. Seems that when shoot the heads of the 2 skeletors, they are no longer able to ‘home in’ on Lara - but that’s very difficult with revolver to do quickly. They go through to previous room & ‘dance about’ - aimlessly? Grating near scroll has been opened at left & can easily hoist up to collect it - a skeleton script, it is called. (In fact, didn’t notice that this was already open when FIRST came into the ‘pool & spots’ room.) When put this on ‘stand’ within the ‘2 helix’ room, a 3rd skeletor rises, but also the gratgins where the 1st 2 skeletors began rises to give access to the cave beyond.

Can go through & pick up N SG shells. One of gratings drops down when have gone through. As approach lower opening in cave, hear raucous cry of another gryphon? Standing near opening causes gradual loss of energy. Yes, E a gryphon in the cave beyond. A gate drops down behind as enter it. At least twig what is causing a strange & continual energy loss as enter this new area: it is the gryphon taking potshots, not at Lara herself, but at her golden statue below, within another helix. At the far side of the cave, at the uppermost level - VERY IMPORANT because seems impossible to return to uppermost level once gone down lower - E a CSP with a loaded Grenade Gun inside (with 10 N grenades).
This means that have to stand on ledge/pfm immediately past dropped gate & shoot down at gryphon from above, W/O going any further down, or will be unable to collect Grenade Gun. Nor can we go there first or will lose so much energy, will have very little left. The other consideration is that when Lara targets the gryphon, she is not shooting at her statue by mistake, so ADDING to the ‘damage’! As go across to fetch Grenade Gun, AFTER having despatched gryphon, E considerable ‘tension’/ ‘danger’/‘hurry!’ music to add to the sense of panic that seems very easy to acquire here!!!

If aiming to decapitate skeletors, then best (this will take several attempts!) might be to move to a square just before they are activated in centre of ‘their’ room, then, RATHER than trying to shoot them AS they rise from the ground (certainly tempting as they are fairly stationary for a short period as they do this), instead: stand facing the ‘skeleton stand’ at the far side of the room, since the skeletors seem to run out the same way each time: forward, then almost turning a right-angle to the left towards Lara. If, WHILE they run out, you draw & aim the revolver at WHERE the head of the first one will end up, then you can shoot it just before it strikes Lara with its sword. Either save here & quickly back off, aiming to do something similar for the 2nd skeletor, or better: try to shoot the 2nd skeletor’s head immediately after the 1st - HAVE managed this (with much practice!), wasting just one shot. (Note: Their shields can be shattered in the same way, but it doesn’t seem to help a lot.) The 3rd skeletor seems easier. It rises to her left AS Lara places the ‘skeleton script’ in place. Turn immediately, control is ‘returned’, then practice angling the revolver again at where you EXPECT its head to be, AFTER it has run forward a little & turned that right-angle toward Lara. 3 skeletors with 4 rounds IS possible w/o ANY ‘damage’ - WITH practice!! They run off very soon to ‘play & dance’ in the main room. (Note: Can use the SG to knock down the skeletors, but E no water or large drop to knock them back down into in this room or in the adjacent room [& couldn’t poss. successfully knock them into gryphon’s pit].)

The gryphon, on the other hand, is difficult. When 1st appear just past dropping gate it is difficult to make sure you don’t drop down further. Then, if you do this successfully, it is difficult to make sure that GRYPHON is targeted & not Lara’s statue, or Lara is contributing to her own health-loss! Then it is difficult to see what is happening below so as to not to keep on shooting endlessly - which means if the gryphon IS deaded, then it is the statue that is being hit again! All the while, it is very important to keep an eye on Lara’s health, so as to make sure she doesn’t run out completely. A good idea seems to be: have a save position just back of the ‘gryphon activation’ square - a couple of squares before the gate that is going to drop - then separate the laser sight from the revolver, or each shot will be through the latter: tricky - then run forward TO ONE SIDE of the only available square for Lara to stand on, just past the gate. This means that if the statue is targeted 1st (usually the case!) then by pressing the ‘look’ key to ‘acquire a different target’, it can be seen that the revolver is moving to follow the gryphon, rather than stationary when trained on the statue. (Standing in the centre, it is difficult to see this difference.) It IS possible to accomplish all this, after many attempts, using just one SMP & 4 revolver rounds.

The next step is to retrieve the Grenade Gun from the CSP - very simple in comparison with what has just gone before! With a cling & drop from the one straight edge at the uppermost level, can then go down easily to ‘statue’ level. (An easy hoist out of small pool if go down into it.) At both sides of the chamber E a grating in front of a lever. At the end of the chamber opposite the statue with the helix E another lever, with some items to pick up below it. (Have to ‘jump into’ alcove with lever because of slope in front of it.) Items to pick up are uzi clips & N SG shells. When operate lever, another gryphon appears behind, attacking the statue. Again when draw gun, it automatically targets the statue 1st, so need to alter target by touching ‘look’ key. Seems to take only 3 well-aimed revolver shots to dispatch the gryphon - much easier this time as can see everything more clearly because down at same level as gryphon. However, still easy to hit statue by mistake & gryphon deliberately flies out of sight so that have to re-acquire target at least once, during which time might ‘trigger-happily’ be shooting at statue! It is the gate to the right that has been opened by the ‘end’ lever. (Note: Notice that ‘statistics’ screen incorrectly states have found 0 secrets - perhaps linked to ‘flare’ bug. [Ah, in fact, going back to when secret was discovered, find that it wasn’t recorded even then.] Checking back to see if all is well with flares/binocs if DON’T 1st find the secret, it in fact makes no difference. Still E the ‘bug’.)
Pulling the RH lever (as seen from ‘end’ lever alcove) activates another gryphon(!) and opens the LH grating. Going across to open the LH lever raises the grating next to it, leading to a dark slope down, but w/o a 4th gryphon! And down the slope is the end of the game!